My Strawberry Moon

The night of the "strawberry moon" I got this shot of the sunset setting the clouds below the moon on fire.  Actually we haven't  seen much of the moon or blue sky for that matter.  Its been raining off and on all month.  I got this picture of the rain headed toward us from across the lake.  We don't remember being in this much rain before up here in the past.  We get rain coming up from the Dakotas as well as coming down from the northwest out of Canada.  It doesn't seem fair to get it from two different directions.  Needless to say we haven't gotten in much fishing.

The EPA paid the resort a visit.  Up on the cliffside where we are parked the owner was clearing trees, etc. to make room for more campground.  Well its a bluff overlooking the lake on the border of a national park so the EPA got very excited about the storm water runoff from the cleared area.  They made the owner stabilize the whole area by planting grass and putting more barriers down to try to stop the water runoff.  It didn't really stop the runoff because it rained so hard the other day that it was like a waterfall with rapids running down the cliffside from all directions.    Of course one cabin owner at the bottom isn't happy with water collecting in his garage.

Fried Walleye

We got out fishing and Jim managed to catch all the fish.  He caught a nice sauger and a keeper walleye.  The sauger has spots on its dorsal fin and no white spot on the tail.  Walleye have the white spot on the tail.  There is a hybrid called a saugeye but if it has the white spot it will be considered a walleye.  This makes a difference when you can only keep 4 walleye and 2 sauger but you could keep 6 sauger.    Most of the state has a 6 walleye limit but here on these border lakes the limit is 4.  It doesn't matter to us because 2 fish were more than enough for a nice fried fish dinner.  Normally, we put them on the grill in some foil with butter and salt and pepper but we had a yen for fried.  It was delicious.

It doesn't seem to want to quit raining up here.  Rain and wind and mostly cool weather have been the norm but now its getting very humid so it feels very warm.  We don't mind the heat so much but it makes cleaning more difficult when the toilets start to sweat.  At least the mosquitos haven't been too bad yet!

Pretty Feathered Friends

We were out on the lake fishing and got to gawk at some cool birds.  It was really neat to watch the pair of eagles.  They were busy fishing along with us.   They just sit up in the tree and look down in the water.  As soon as a fish gets too close to the surface they just swoop down and grab it out of the water.  These two will squawk at you if you catch something.  They expect you to give up your catch to them.   We didn't catch a fish close to them so we didn't get to hear them beg for our fish.

This Merganser just had all of these little ducklings.  They were less than a week old and so cute stuffed underneath her.  The biggest duckling rested a little apart from the group.  He didn't need to snuggle up as close as the rest for warmth and protection because of his size.   Mother merganser went to the water and the ducklings just followed right behind.  It was amazing to watch the littlest ones go in last but take off like a shot once they were in the water.   

Baby Ducks

Oh so cute baby ducks on the move with mom.  These poor little ducks were headed toward the water but faced a barrier of bricks.  It was amazing watching these little guys jump up and over the bricks.  They all made it even the littlest one.  Mom then guided them to the edge of the dock and jumped down into the water.  It was over a two foot jump down to the water but the baby ducks all followed her and jumped in the water.  I don't know if human children would be brave enough to make a jump like that to follow mom. 

Its been raining off and on for a week and it doesn't look like its going to stop any time soon.  Hopefully we will get out fishing again but its not looking good.